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SEMANTICS
SEMIOTICS SEMANTICS PRAGMATICS
The scientific study of signs. The scientific study of meaning. Subfield of Semiotics.
The scientific study of language in use.
. SPECULATIVE ETYMOLOGY
Aristotle and Plato are the first scholars to discuss meaning. In Plato’s Cratylus , the characters talk about philosophical matters and they present the idea that a word has one correct inherited meaning. This theory was developed up to the Middle Ages. But medieval etymologists worked under no scientific foundation.
. THE RHETORICAL TRADITION
Formal education was restricted to the clergy and the nobility (males only). In the 14th^ and 15th centuries, young noblemen received formal education in the called artes liberales : Trivium (grammar, dialectics and rhetoric) and Quatrivium (arithmetic, music, geometry and astronomy).
Rhetoric’s steps were:
- Invention: the discovery of ideas.
- Arrangement: the organization of the text.
- Style: the formulation of ideas (figurative language).
- Memorization.
- Delivery.
. EARLY LEZICOGRAPHY: DICTIONARIES
The first dictionaries were mostly bilingual and multilingual. In the 17th^ century, the first monolingual dictionary (Italian) was published in Florence (1612). This led to the publication of more monolingual dictionaries around Europe: France 1694, England 1755. In these monolingual dictionaries, the starting point is the word vs. a thesaurus, in which the concept is the starting point.
. HISTORICAL-PHILOLOGICAL TRADITION (1850-1930)
It was a strong diachronic tradition. Scholars, such as Michel Bréal and Hermann Paul, studied the evolution of words and concepts over time and also compared words. This period described some of the most important changes (in phonetics and semantics) that have occurred throughout history. They focused on diachronic and on the comparative method.
Semasiology: ( sema , ‘meaning, sense’) takes the form/word as a starting point and looks at/for the different concepts the form stands for.
‘school’ has several meanings, it is polisemus, from a semasiological analysis.
Onomasiology: ( onoma , ‘name’) the concept as the starting point and looks for the words that stand for that concept.
The concept of ‘sad’ con be related to words such as ‘blue’, ‘depressed’, ‘pity’, ‘sad’, ‘loneliness’, ‘sorrow’… There words are not interchangeable, they do not have the same proportion of meaning of the concept ‘sad’. Onomasiologic analysis: takes the concept and then looks for the words that can match that concept.
Language is formed by form and meaning.
Mechanisms of change:
. SPECIALIZATION: a word suffers a process through which it can specialize its meaning, so as to refer only to something more specific. . GENERALIZATION: reverse process. . METAPHOR. . METONYMY. . STRUCTURALISM (1930- )
It focuses on the structure of language, not on a separate sign. It is a shift in focus (Saussure). Diachronic to synchronic. From semasiology to onomasiology (importance of the concept and the different words to refer to that concept). Interest in the relations of meaning in a system no words in isolation but how they work together. Types of structuralist semantics:
- Lexical field theory: language constitutes an intermediate conceptual level between the mind and the world: language carves up semantic fields into smaller conceptual plots. Meanings are mutually interdependent: ‘blue’: to define it you need to get into the lexical field of colour, same semantic domain. ‘toothbrush’: to define it you need to use the semantic field of personal hygiene, or to oppose it to other kind of brushes. One lexical field does not exclude the other.
- Componential analysis: a logical development from lexical field theory: defining and delimitating mutual oppositions. It is a feature-based approach. Structuralist phonology: minimal parts – identical phonemes except for the voice-voiceless feature. Structuralist semantics: ‘father’, to know the meaning you need the lexical field of family. You need to compare it with ‘mother’: Female gender 1 generation up Direct line of descent ‘father’ - + + ‘mother’ + + - ‘grandfather’ - - + ‘uncle’ - + -
In structuralism, language is seen as a system of relationship between words. It is interested in the abstract system. Structuralism: feature-based, binary oppositions, necessary and sufficient features.
. GENERATIVISM (1950s/1960s)
Noam Chomsky: language is innate and autonomous, that is, it is independent from anything else in our brain (from vision, memory, ability to categorize…). It is a rule-governed theory, as you can generate lots of linguist examples if you follow the rule. And feature-based, but not interested in how words relate, it can study words in isolation (system unimportant). Example of Katz and Fodor’s analysis of ‘bachelor’: tree- structure, feature-based analysis of a single lexical term:
HYPONYM
HYPERONYM
The mode of reference can be:
. Symbolic mode: arbitrary/conventional link. A link between trigger and concept is purely conventional.
. Indexical mode: motivated, based on contiguity. Dedo índice indicar. When dealing with
metonymy, there is a mapping process to relate the figurative meaning with the concept.
. Iconic mode: motivated, based on similarity. Don’t spoon-feed your students / The new was hard to swallow / The report was full of half-backed ideas / That’s the juicy/meaty part of the argument: four linguistic expression of the same metaphor – food and processing foodinformation processing. . LEXICAL SEMANTICS
Structuralism vs. Cognitive semantics: two different approaches. Componential analysis vs. Prototype analysis. STRUCTURALIST PERSPECTIVE OF LEXICAL SEMANTICS. You can analyze meaning from two perspectives:
- Different meanings of single terms (semasiological analysis). A single word can/may have a number of different senses: I sit on a chair (central meaning) / He holds the chair of theoretical linguistics / Who is going to chair the meeting tomorrow? / He was condemned to the chair / She plays first-chair violin. ‘chair’: all the meanings are related, so it is a case of POLYSEMY. In most instances a word seems to have a CENTRAL MEANING from which a number of other meanings are derived (central not prototypical). However, sometimes the meanings become so remote, or evolve diachronically speaking in such manners that we can barely see the link: ‘bar’: central sense: ‘elongated object’, can also be ‘pub’, ‘place where you take the drinks’, ‘chocolate bar’, ‘barrier’…
HOMONYMY POLYSEMY
Different meanings which coincide in form. These words are homographs. Two different unrelated terms which are pronounced alike. [homophones just have the same pronunciation
- may be written differently]
A single term has several meanings that are somehow related. It allows a language to need fewer lexicons. One term with central meaning and related meanings.
- Related meanings of different forms (onomasiological analysis). Different words can have related senses: concept of ‘run’ can be related to forms such as sprint, jog, walk, jump, crawl … The meanings of different semantic units may be related in four principal manners:
INCLUSION OVERLAPPING CONTIGUITY
COMPLEMENTATION
A B C D
a) Inclusion. The meaning of one word is ‘included’ within the meaning of another: animal-dog- puddle / colour-red-vermilion. The first words represent the BASIC CATEGORY. A wider area of meaning need fewer semantic components to indentify the basis for class membership for a great number of referents. In turn, each included element has all the features of the ‘including’ meaning plus at least one more feature which serves to distinguish the more restricted area. b) Overlapping. Meanings may overlap or partially do: give-bestow (restricted to legal formal language) / sick-ill (more serious) / posses-own / increase-go up … c) Complementation. OPPOSITES ( tall-short / good-bad / now-then ); REVERSIVES ( tie-untie / connect-disconnect ); CONVERSIVE RECIPROCAL MEANINGS ( buy-sell ). d) Contiguity. Represents “the relation between closely related meanings occupying a well- defined semantic domain, exhibiting certain well-marked contrasts”.
. COMPONENTIAL ANALYSIS
Each meaning is distinctly set off from other related meanings by at least one important feature: diagnostic or distinctive component/feature. A cluster of contiguous meaning sharing a series of common features/components so that they constitute a single semantic domain. Example: walk/run/jump/jog/crawl/stroll , common and diagnostic or distinctive components/features? Physical movement in space.
We intend to analyze referential meaning. Reference is based on the relation between the lexical unit and the referent. The referent is not the meaning. The meaning consists of a structured bundle of cognitive features associated with the lexical unit, which makes possible the designation of all the referents that “correspond” to the lexical unit in question.
COMPONENTS OF MEANING. Those necessary and sufficient semantic features that distinguish the meaning of one form from other forms. The componential features of the central meaning of ‘father’ can be found by contrasting this central meaning with the meanings of other forms in the same semantic domain.
So, in structuralism, things are what they are because of certain features they have.
. PROTOTYPE THEORY (1950s)
Wittgenstein introduced the idea of FAMILY RESEMBLANCE: the idea that within a family, not all members need to share the same identical features. Example: ‘game’ (as a lexical unit): ‘chess’ (you need skills and intelligence), ‘dice’ (a matter of luck), both imply notions such as fun, winning and losing: some games share features with other games, others no; but there is no one feature that is common to all o them. This is new vs. structuralism. Semantics has to reflect the flexibility of real life.
This idea also includes the concept of EXTENDABLE BOUNDARIES: senses that relate to another:
Sense D may not have a lot in common with A (again different from structuralism as there are no common shared features).
HEDGES (Lakoff 1973)
An ostrich is a bird par excellence / A nightingale is a bird par excellence ( par excellence = focuses on the most prototypical, so in the first sentence it sounds weird as an ostrich is not the most prototypical bird).
Loosely speaking a table is a piece of furniture / Loosely speaking a lamp is a piece of furniture ( loosely speaking sounds weird in the first sentence because a table is a very representative piece of furniture).
Hedges require us to distinguish between central and peripheral members of a category ( par excellence, strictly speaking ), as well as between different degrees of non-membership in a category. They show that category boundaries are flexible.
